Three Down!

February 26th, 2015: What modifications for learners who are exceptional do you see?

These last couple of weeks I have begun working with the few kids in my class who have a harder time staying focused and who sometimes throw tantrums. It has been interesting working with them. I work with them during their writers workshop time, which is when they are to be quiet and come up with "five finger" stories. Once they finish one, they just move onto another one. And this time is really difficult for the few boys I work with. My job is to silently, but so they know, watch them and keep reminding them to stay on task. They are so easily distracted by everything that is going on around them. If one person raises their hand to ask a question, it throws my boys off and they are all of a sudden just staring into space. Or if you tell one of them to get busy on their paper, sometimes it just makes him have a tantrum. 

Just a couple of weeks ago, the teacher I work with came up with an idea to start giving them one gummy bear if they are doing a good job during their writing time. So she would watch them and if they went a couple of minutes without needing reminding to stay on task, she would give the each a gummy bear. At first I wasn't too sure how all the other kids in the class would react, because gummy bears are awesome and they weren't getting any. But they were all so good about it. And the last couple of weeks since she started doing it, the three boys are doing so amazing! 

We also give the boys so many compliments. Randomly walking by and just saying, "Wow! I really appreciate that you boys are doing so well!" or, "Keep up the good work guys! I really love seeing how hard you work." And it really seems to boost their confidence and they want to keep impressing us. They are doing so great but it is also a struggle to keep them focused. With what we have been talking about ADHD this last module, has really stuck with me, because I help these kids, and it is nice to know different ways to help them out. 

Number Two!

February 12th, 2015 Tell about an opportunity you had to work with a small group

This past week I was in my second grade class and the teacher asked me to take a group of kids who have a harder time focusing on their assignments to the back table and work with them. I always get excited when I am able to actually work with the kids and not just copy papers or grade assignments. As the group of the three boys were coming back to the table, I knew what was going to happen because I have seen how they work and I know how they were going to be when they got to the table. As I suspected once they got to me, they immediately started whispering to each other and asking where the others were on their assignments/sharing answers with each other. So I seperated them as much as I could. I had them each sit one chair apart so they weren't right together. This group of boys has a really hard time not talking to each other and it was supposed to be quiet in the classroom. But we worked on it. I had to remind them so many times that they needed to keep working. I would lightly touch their papers when they were off task so they knew to get back to it. We were together for about 10 minutes and it went pretty well. I love those boys, even though they are hard to handle a lot of the time. It was fun working with them.

Since my last post we have talked about segregation in the classrooms and things that happened in the earlier times in schools. I decided to look around at the school I am at and see if there is still segregation today. Not racism segregation but different types of segregation. And suprisingly I saw a few. The kids in my classroom don't realize that is what they are doing, but it happens. The girls stay away from the boys, if a student has some sort of disability the other students don't play with them, and I saw that they split off into groups of the "hyper" students and the quiet students.

I was actually kind of suprised that there are ways that segregation is still in school. I am glad to see that color of skin and race don't have any issues (at least not in the school I am working in) but it is interesting to see the different types of segregation that happens in the schools today.